Vittoria — Volume 5 eBook

She meant she would pity Wilfrid in deluding him.
It was a taint of the hypocrisy which comes with
shame.

The signora retorted: “I can’t follow
the action of your mind a bit.”

Pity being a form of tenderness, Laura supposed that
she would intuitively hate the man who compelled her
to do what she abhorred.

They spent the greater portion of the night in this
debate.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO

Vittoria knew better than Laura that the task was
easy; she had but to override her aversion to the
show of trifling with a dead passion; and when she
thought of Angelo lying helpless in the swarm of enemies,
and that Wilfrid could consent to use his tragic advantage
to force her to silly love-play, his selfishness wrought
its reflection, so that she became sufficiently unjust
to forget her marvellous personal influence over him.
Even her tenacious sentiment concerning his white
uniform was clouded. She very soon ceased to
be shamefaced in her own fancy. At dawn she
stood at her window looking across the valley of Meran,
and felt the whole scene in a song of her heart, with
the faintest recollection of her having passed through
a tempest overnight. The warm Southern glow
of the enfoliaged valley recalled her living Italy,
and Italy her voice. She grew wakefully glad:
it was her nature, not her mind, that had twisted
in the convulsions of last night’s horror of
shame. The chirp of healthy blood in full-flowing
veins dispersed it; and as a tropical atmosphere is
cleared by the hurricane, she lost her depression and
went down among her enemies possessed by an inner
delight, that was again of her nature, not of her
mind. She took her gladness for a happy sign
that she had power to rise buoyant above circumstances;
and though aware that she was getting to see things
in harsh outlines, she was unconscious of her haggard
imagination.

The Lenkensteins had projected to escape the blandishments
of Vienna by residing during the winter in Venice,
where Wilfrid and his sister were to be the guests
of the countess:—­a pleasant prospect that
was dashed out by an official visit from Colonel Zofel
of the Meran garrison, through whom it was known that
Lieutenant Pierson, while enjoying his full liberty
to investigate the charms of the neighbourhood, might
not extend his excursions beyond a pedestrian day’s
limit;—­he was, in fact, under surveillance.
The colonel formally exacted his word of honour that
he would not attempt to pass the bounds, and explained
to the duchess that the injunction was favourable
to the lieutenant, as implying that he must be ready
at any moment to receive the order to join his regiment.
Wilfrid bowed with a proper soldierly submission.
Respecting the criminal whom his men were pursuing,
Colonel Zofel said that he was sparing no efforts
to come on his traces; he supposed, from what he had
heard in the Ultenthal, that Guidascarpi was on his
back somewhere within a short range of Meran.
Vittoria strained her ears to the colonel’s
German; she fancied his communication to be that he
suspected Angelo’s presence in Meran.